http://www.sbsun.com/news/ci_4187292

Immigration issue driving school races

Stephen Wall, Staff Writer
San Bernardino County Sun

SAN BERNARDINO - Joseph Turner is taking his fight against illegal immigration to another venue.
But he'll need the public's help to get there.

The 29-year-old Save Our State founder is running for a seat on the San Bernardino City Unified School District board.

His longtime girlfriend, Alexis Ashley, is joining him in the battle.

Ashley is seeking the same seat on the San Bernardino County Board of Education as Latino activist Gil Navarro, an adversary of Turner's in the immigration debate.

Turner and Ashley say her decision to run for the same post as Navarro is just a coincidence. Navarro is skeptical.

Both candidates turned in papers for the Area D seat - which serves the San Bernardino City and Rialto Unified school districts - within about 90 minutes of each other on Friday, the filing deadline for the Nov. 7 election.

Navarro submitted his papers at about 3 p.m. and was inside the Registrar of Voters office when Ashley showed up at about 4:30 p.m.

"It wasn't designed that way," said Ashley, 31, a management analyst. "It was complete happenstance that this happened. There's no way I could have known."

Navarro, who has run unsuccessfully for elected political office at least 10 times, has his doubts.

"It's too strange to be a coincidence," said Navarro, 64.

Turner, who proposed a failed ballot initiative that would have prohibited city-funded day-labor centers in San Bernardino, said he is running for school board to "aggressively target the policies that aid and abet illegal immigration."

Turner said he would work to abolish bilingual education and programs that allow English-learners to be taught in Spanish in the classroom.

The 58,000-student district, which is nearly two-thirds Latino, has about 15,000 students who are not proficient in English, officials said.

"If you're an English-learner, you need to learn English. Period," said Turner, who attended elementary schools in San Bernardino. "You need to get up to speed on speaking the language as quickly as possible so you can assimilate into our society."

Turner and Ashley have a son that attends school in the San Bernardino district.

Turner said he also would pursue ways to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court decision that allows illegal-immigrant children to receive free public education from kindergarten through 12th grade.

Turner said educating illegal immigrants is a drain on public resources.

"I believe American schools should be for American children," Turner said. "I don't see why San Bernardino taxpayers and American taxpayers should have to pay to educate children who shouldn't be here while our children's education suffers," Turner said.

Ashley said she agrees with Turner's views on illegal immigration.

"I am opposed to illegal immigration unapologetically," said Ashley, who like Turner, has never run for political office. "If you have 500 children to educate rather than 400 children, obviously there's a diminishing return."

Ashley, however, said she's not running because of the immigration issue.

Her focus is eliminating waste and excessive bureaucracy in the public school system.

"We need to follow the dollar from Sacramento to our county to our city to our schools," Ashley said.

Navarro and Ashley are trying to unseat incumbent John Preston Miller, who could not be reached for comment.

Navarro proposes policies to improve continuation schools, increase the high-school graduation rate and help pregnant minors attend community college.

Navarro opposed Turner's attempt to qualify his anti-illegal-immigration measure for the ballot, along with Armando Navarro, an ethnic-studies professor at UC Riverside.

Gil Navarro plans to speak out against Turner in addition to running for his own seat.

He said it's the law that all children should have the right to public education regardless of immigration status.

"Turner would be violating the mission of the district and the rights of the children and the parents who are here illegally to have access to the services of the school district," Navarro said.

Seven candidates besides Turner are running for four seats on the city school board.

Louise A. Ayala, Rhonda M. Early and Amanda Jacobs are trying to unseat incumbents Antonio F. Dupre Sr. , Teresa Parra, Lynda K. Savage and Elsa O. Valdez.